The present invention relates generally to a needle holder and more particularly to a needle holder for a hollow type needle having a sharp tip at one end and being mounted in a hub at the other end. Needles of this type are commonly used in collecting blood from a donor.
In a number of medical procedures it is often necessary for a patient to receive a supplementary quantity of blood. Supplies of blood for such a purpose are usually obtained in advance from donors and stored in containers called blood transfusion bags.
Blood transfusion bags are generally fabricated from a plastic material, such as polyvinylchloride, and are sized to hold about 450 milliliters of blood. Each bag has an inlet port through which blood is received from the donor and a pair of outlet ports from which blood dispensed to a recipient. A length of plastic tubing on the order of about forty-five centimeters or longer extends out from the inlet port and provides a passageway through which blood is transmitted from the donor into the blood transfusion bag.
The length of plastic tubing extending from the inlet port is usually made up of two sections, an inner section and an outer section, with the two sections being interconnected end-to-end to form the overall length of tubing. The inner section is integrally formed with the blood transfusion bag at its inner end and has an elongated hollow rubber fitting usually circular in external cross-section at its outer end. The outer section has a hollow straight needle mounted at each end. Each one of the two needles has a sharp tip at its outer end and an elongated rubber hub, usually rectangular in external cross section, at its inner end. The needle at the outer end of the outer section is often referred to as the primary needle and is the needle that is actually inserted into the donor to extract the blood. The needle at the inner end of the outer section is somewhat shorter in length than the primary needle and is usually referred to as the in-line needle. This latter needle is used for a purpose that will hereinafter be explained. The in-line needle is removably mounted in the hollow rubber fitting at the outer end of the inner section.
In addition to filling the blood transfusion bag, it is common practice to also fill about two or three blood collection tubes, called pilot tubes, with blood from the donor for general test purposes (i.e. to determine blood type, etc.). These pilot tubes are hollow, evacuated, open at one end and provided with a rubber stopper at the open end to seal the tube and maintain the vacuum within the tube. After the pilot tubes have been filled with blood, the inner section of plastic tubing with blood in it from the donor is usually sealed off at about one and one-half inch increments over its length so as to form a series or chain of about a dozen segments, with each segment having about two milliliters of the same blood that is in the blood transfusion bag. The outer section of tubing and the outer end of the inner section are then removed and discarded. The individual segments so formed are used as needed when the occasion arises for testing with a sample of blood from a recipient to insure that the blood from the donor in the blood transfusion bag will not precipitate some form of reaction in the recipient.
In the past, the pilot tubes have been filled with blood from the donor by either one of two techniques.
One technique involves getting the blood directly from the donor after the blood transfusion bag has been filled. With the primary needle still inserted in the donor the length of plastic tubing extending from the blood transfusion bag is clamped on either side of the in-line needle. The in-line needle is then detached from the hollow rubber fitting. The tip of the in-line needle is then pushed through the rubber stopper in the particular pilot tube which is to be filled with blood and into the interior of the tube. The clamp between the primary needle and the in-line needle is then released allowing blood to flow directly from the donor into the pilot tube. The other pilot tubes are filled the same way, temporarily clamping the tubing while the needle is being transferred from one pilot tube to the next. One of the problems with this technique is that pushing the tip of the needle through the rubber stopper in the pilot tube and into the interior of the pilot tube is by no means an easy task and, on occasion, the person attempting to insert the needle into the tube will end up actually sticking the tip of the needle into his or her finger. Another shortcoming of this technique is that the primary needle is not removed from the donor as soon as the blood transfusion bag is filled with blood but rather stays inserted in the donor while the pilot tubes are being filled. From the donor's standpoint this procedure is not entirely desirable since the donor would prefer to have the needle removed as soon as possible (i.e. once the blood transfusion bag is filled).
The other technique for filling the pilot tubes involves taking the blood from the blood transfusion bag rather than from the donor. In accordance with this other technique, the blood transfusion bag is filled with more than the normal amount of blood it should hold, the amount of additional blood being sufficient to fill two or three pilot tubes. The length of plastic tubing is then clamped near the primary needle. The primary needle is then removed from the donor and inserted through the rubber stopper in the particular pilot tube to be filled with blood. The clamp is then released and the pilot tube filled with blood from the blood transfusion bag. After one pilot tube is filled, the needle is inserted into another pilot tube and so forth. After all of the pilot tubes are filled, the donor is attended to (i.e. gauze or a bandage is placed on the puncture in the skin etc.). Although this second technique involves removing the primary needle from the donor at an earlier point in time than the first technique, it still presents the problem of the technician or nurse being stuck by the needle as it is being inserted into the stopper; and, in fact, in this instance it is a somewhat larger needle (i.e. the primary needle rather than the in-line needle) that is being inserted into the pilot tube. Another problem with this technique is that the donor is not attended to by the technician or nurse until after all of the pilot tubes have been filled. From the donor's viewpoint this is very undesirable. It has been suggested that the donor be attended to before the needle is inserted and pushed through the stopper of the pilot tube. The shortcoming with this suggestion is that there is no place to store the needle while the donor is being attended to and it is very difficult, if at all possible, to hold the needle and at the same time attend to the donor.